Little Wasp
by BetweenTheSeaAndStars
Summary: In a world where Ninja are the elite there is little most want to do but learn to use chakra and thrive. But what if you weren't able to? Especially if you were the twin sister to the talented, and sweet Rin and you were left behind?Not every path is a good one,and not everyone's a good person. Rei will take any risk to find a way,even if she is tarnished by those helping her NotSI
1. Chapter 1

AN: Sorry can't stop the weird ideas. In _Who up there hates me?_ I have a case of a twin who can't use chakra and doesn't hold it against the one who can. They're wonderful and Lee is a very special person. But what if you _weren't_? Especially if you were the twin sister to the beautiful, talented, and sweet Rin and you were none of those things? **Warning this is NOT a nice story. Drama and angst.**

Not every path is a good one, and not everyone's a good person. Some are just in the middle and it doesn't take a lot to push them away.

()()()()()()()

Nohara Rei was born first. It was about the only thing she came ahead of Rin for. Her hair was a muddied color instead of Rin's chocolate, where Rin had lovely dark green eyes like the hidden side of a leaf Rei's were just black. Rin's markings were more vibrant, Rei's were muted and thinner. Rin was sweet and kind and forgiving.

Rei had a temper, knew she was a jealous brat, and while she could do nice things she didn't come by them as effortlessly. She didn't trust easily.

The first thing she learned, though their parents loved them both and didn't try to show it..was that Rin was the better daughter. She may have been born second, but she was everyone's favorite.

When they were children of course they played with all the other children in the village. Where they would pick Rin though and the girls would be happy at her side making flower crowns, Rei would prefer to play active rough games with the boys who soon decided girls were gross. It meant the same children that just hours before she was wrestling with or kicking a ball around were now taunting her and telling her to go away. Don't forget the stupid names they were uttering in her direction.

She hit one of them for teasing her and made him cry. Rin was the one who comforted the same child and told on her to their parents because it wasn't nice.

"Why did you do that?" Their father asked, looming over Rei later on. Rei scowled down at the ground because really wasn't it all nicely laid out when Rin told their parents earlier? If this was to try and make her feel guilty it wasn't going to work. She was far too stubborn.

"He insulted me."

"You cannot go hitting clan kid's, Rei."

That was the second thing she learned. Everyone sided with the clans. The cousin to the brat who had called her such pathetic names started to play with Rin. Uchiha Obito. He was funny, awkward, and nice in a completely messed up way that amused Rei but he'd only play with her if Rin wasn't there. Rei didn't want to be second in yet another thing so she started to avoid Obito even if he could make her laugh.

Things almost got better. Like most of the available kids in the midst of war Rei went to the academy, had watched as Rin seemed to get everyone there to talk to her even the stuck up prodigy Kakashi. Because of the accelerated curriculum it only took a single year before things took another turn for the worse.

Rei had liked the idea of becoming a shinobi and making a name for herself. Who didn't like the idea of being a ninja in a ninja village after all? So she'd studied hard and spent hours until her fingers bled throwing the shuriken and kunai and she worked her taijutsu mercilessly..

Until the chakra lessons started.

She couldn't do a _thing._ She didn't even have enough chakra to eventually learn to tree walk which was considered a necessity. Even Gai who was such a dork the whole class was entertained by him would some day be able to do that.

They were in war times. There was no cease fire coddling and no resources to waste on a dead end. She had a meeting with her parents and sensei and was told not to come back the next day.

"I'm afraid young Rei simply has no more chakra available to her than a regular civilian child. While it's true you can grow chakra through meditation and exercise and other methods there is still a set finite amount that everyone can reach that is determined by each person's system. Rei will never have enough to be a genin."

The words haunted her. Perhaps in the future, in a place that was not so tense with war for all it was unofficial war, she would have made it anyways. With a longer time before needing every able body to set out someone would have been able to work with her and her lack of chakra but where she would never have enough to take to the trees or walk on the rooftops? It was doubtful.

Rei heard her parents talking in whispers one day behind a closed door when she went to get a different book while Rin was at the academy. "Even those with damaged coils can at least tree walk..."

She was worse off than someone 'damaged.' huh?

()()()()()()

Of course, it turned out Rin was a natural. Not only was she good enough with her control to look into medical jutsu's at seven years old but she was possessing such a strong will she could break most genjutsu's some day.

Rei didn't _want_ to dislike her sister..but it was very hard when envy ate her from the inside.

So she avoided her. Rin bought every pathetic lie she gave as a reason they weren't hanging out anymore. Great. She was a better liar than her sister. It didn't make her feel better.

Just a lot worse.

The third thing she realized was Rin deserved a better sister.

()()()()()()

With the path of ninja barred to her Rei was trying to find something else. She still loved weapons and fighting with them, dreaming of if she could..if she had..for a very short time she thought of perhaps becoming a fighter anyways and specializing in them because you know, her aim was extremely good.

One day she went by a training field and saw new genin practicing though and at such a _speed.._ and yet their sensei was scolding them for being slow. That they had not gotten any faster since they graduated. It was enough for Rei to approach their father and ask about it.

"Well of course, the ninja start to enhance everything with chakra. It's how they get as strong and fast as they do. Why do you care, Rei? Asking for Rin?"

Somehow the way he worded it made Rei decide that was closed to her too. But then she was cleaning up Rin's side of their room one day, restless for a lack of direction, and spotted her medical journal open to a page.

'On poison's and drugs used in assassinations'

Oh?

()()()()()()()

There was something here. Rei had rushed to the library, forgotten to eat, barely slept and kept going back. Book after book, every scroll she could find she absolutely _devoured._ This was a skill that if you were not looking to actually heal or save? It didn't rely on chakra. Rei's eyes narrowed and turned thoughtful. She needed good information. The question was who to ask it of because the wrong person would not help her.

Rei wasn't a fool. She'd go to the other most commonly overlooked source of information besides children.

Elders.

()()()()()()

There was a section of Konoha's hospital reserved for those who needed to be close by in case something failed. Of them, she was looking for one in particular. They called him Oni. He was one of the first prisoners kept alive in Konoha, now a ratty old man who spent half his days in the hospital and the other half in his run down home near the hospital. Just in case. He had lost all his hair, most his teeth. He was covered in old injuries and scars with many of his fingers missing and his ankle was broken and never set right so he needed a cane. He had lived through the days of the founding, part of a clan that had attacked not long after Hashirama had been named Hokage. The man knew so much of their enemies however, that the Honorable Wife Mito had made intricate seals that permanently sealed off the mans chakra. Something about a kinjutsu..

The worst of the injuries came from the first time he'd risen up against the village with some of their enemies. He hadn't been properly healed or allowed to leave since. But he was still wise, still knew things for all his ramblings these days were ignored. Visiting a few of the other elders who were bed ridden -and coo'd over by the staff for stopping by to ask them stories- Oni had been brought up again and again.

She lucked out because he seemed more amused at the fact she was seeking out an old poison master who had lost so many fingers just so he wouldn't be able to prepare anything dangerous.

"You want to learn hm?"

"I can't be a ninja by their standards but.."

"You're an evil girl inside aren't you?" He seemed amused though and Rei shifted. She looked at him.

"I'm not evil, but I'm jealous and angry and I want to be _capable._ "

"That I can work with. You ever thought of killing someone or are you just thinking of paralysis?" There was something slimey to his words but Rei steeled herself.

"All Ninja kill eventually." If Rin could face that so could she. "They talk about stealth and being secretive but all the jutsu's I have seen are really loud and obvious.."

Oni's eyes seem to bug out as he gives a gap toothed leer. "Seen through that have you? Well..maybe you've been born too late girl..let's have a nice chat..see if you can appreciate how I knew things." He lets her in.

()()()()()()()

Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly...

I'll make you into something more.

Won't you come sit down and close your eyes?

The bite will only take a moment...

Hollow you out, wrap you up, change your thoughts inside out.

Set you off after those out of my reach.

A fly no more.

Sting, little wasp.

()()()()()()

Rei's days change. She manages to smile at Rin and her parents, feels more in control. She still visits the elderly in the hospital but the rest of the time she's with Old man Oni.

"When I was young, lots of us were not from clans. Plenty didn't have jutsu's to toss about or lots of chakra. Yet we still wiped them out. They'd think it was a plague, or each other.." He'd give that unhinged leer at her and wave around mangled hands. "Nin today, so soon after Konoha has been founded have already forgotten that it's the subtle ways no one tracks. They simper out 'look underneath the underneath' and the tree hugging simpletons forget that no one should know you're attacking! Listen well girl..if you go screaming out your attacks you've already lost. If you have to rely on hand signs, you're too slow. Pfft not a one of these legendary sannin I've heard of probably ever had to battle a samurai. They make an _art_ of striking before a nin can make hand signs."

"Don't they help mold chakra?" She asks, not that it applies to her but he's teaching her in general. Theories that she would never hear elsewhere. One of those crazed eyes locks onto her and he smirks.

"If you need assistance to pull off an attack, little wasp, you aren't capable of using it. It's like using blunted kunai because no one showed you where to grasp it and you don't wish to cut yourself."

"They teach us a well placed attack.."

"What these brats think of as an attack we would have called other names, none of them good to repeat in front of little girls no matter how twisted they think they can be." Oni shakes his head. "An attack is one they never saw coming. A feint so they don't realize what you were up to. If you are fighting them off in defense is the only time you don't dictate how the battle starts but you need to always know how to end it."

"What about how fast they go with chakra?"

Oni grins and it's a dark cruel expression. "The thing about chakra, is the higher up a shinobi is the more they rely on it. You'd be amazed how many I killed without ever using chakra. It used to be a very rare thing in the tales I was taught by my father and his grandfather hadn't even a lick of it but his kill count was legendary, it's only recently become so wide spread but when that happens? Those who know how to work around it can do far more damage without ever being known. Throw a few fireballs and everyone can find you."

There's multiple parts along her body suddenly feeling off and she looks down, eyes wide as there are at least six senbon sticking out of her skin, barely having penetrated. They don't hurt but it feels decidedly weird.

"Just one of those, if I had the right substances on would need to hit. I could scratch you with something in passing. Those without chakra are assassins whom are never sensed little wasp..now pull those out and come here."

()()()()()

Oni is insane.

There's no doubting this, he's half in delusions that he is still at war with many of the clans in the surrounding area where most the names he speaks of have long died out. The man is a terrifying genius when it comes to plants and poisons and ways to kill. He makes her study as he lectures on torture methods and they cause her to squirm but she does not object.

He never poisons her outwardly, but he introduces her to small common ones and taking tiny parts at a time to start building her immunity. It's her mind that he's working the most on and as he watches the dark eyed girl slowly grinding up a mixture that she's going to be testing on herself later he's pleased. Some rush to the prodigies and coo over them. Some look for the genius's. Oni's clan was not made up of families but of the desperate and the angry. The damaged. It can just be a tiny crack but slowly he will wedge it wider and wider until she's been hollowed out and remade.

Danzo had spent years interrogating Oni for methods for Root. He never liked the pathetic mindless creations Root turned out though because you need someone almost broken but not entirely to have creative genius. He'd given up on finding an apprentice, and then the little wasp flew his way. She thought she was just a bee. A single sting and then gone, but he knows something that can sting over and over and bite when he sees it.

One who hasn't the chakra to even be a suspect and so the idiotic fools running this village that has been his prison do not think him a danger now since his chakra is long sealed away. But the true danger of his clan had been in a kinjutsu technique that this little girl is perfect for. He can make her addicted. In her his legacy will go on and that it's a konoha brat who sought him out is so perfect he laughs all the time.

The slide of this girl into not trusting those around her will not take long. They've already been doing much of the work for him and it is a delightful irony that it is the love of a sister she does not want to hate, that is pushing her where he would otherwise need to guide.

()()()()()()()

"Rei?"

"Hey Rin, what is it?" She asks as she waves, leaving from gathering simple plants in the park. None of them are dangerous but she has to learn basic herbology along with the more lethal uses.

"Ah Obito and I are going for dango with some of the other kids, come with us?" And Rin smiles at her, eyes hopeful. She's so adorable when she does that, her whole heart in her eyes. Rei doesn't have the heart to refuse. For all that she feels out of place among the other academy kids all jabbering on about their last lesson and skills she just can't put Rin off that time.

"Oh! Rei I haven't seen you in forever!" Obito laughs as he walks over, grinning under his goggles. "Why haven't I seen you at the academy?"

It makes Rei feel small but Rin is off placing their order along with some of the other kids, and it is just her and Obito right now in the booth. She feels her face grow hot but sighs. "They kicked me out, Obito. I don't have enough chakra."

"What!? That's not cool! Not at all! I'm so sorry Rei I bet you'd have been awesome!" and for just a moment as Obito is ranting and waving his arms, Rei manages a tiny smile.

"Thanks."

"Huh?"

"You're...the first who said so."

"I'm sure Rin said something she's wonderful like that!"

Rei just smiles crookedly at him but it doesn't reach her eyes because of course Rin did. She feels her hand drop to her pocket where a spare key now is to Old man Oni's house so she can let herself in to study on her own if he's hospital ridden.

Because at least there, she's 'little wasp' instead of Rin's sister. Self disgust at her thoughts hollows her out a little more.

()()()()()()

The time flies by and soon Rin has graduated, she's placed on a team with Obito and Kakashi because of _course she is._ The boy she loves and the one who loves her. Why Rin can't see it Rei doesn't know but it is just one more difference in them.

Rei doesn't have anyone who even thinks of her like that, not when her face isn't as soft and her jaw is too strong, her grandmother once called it..

"You've got the Nohara face, girl. It makes for handsome features. Rin takes after your mother, those Oiwa always did look far too pretty the lot of them." Their grandmother was the absolute definition of a handsome woman. Not beautiful but handsome. Strong features that were even as opposed to delicate, proud of bearing. It was not a bad thing..

When you were older.

The number of awkward hopeful boys who have approached her to see if Rin may be open to their confessions is frankly weird and she's taken to (when applicable) staring at the strangers. "Do I _know you?"_ It works rather well.

The rest of the time she's learning with Oni, poisons and methods and antidotes. He's worked with her in an empty room of his house to show her how to throw and there's a boy one day who takes her out and starts showing her what to do at the training grounds but says as little as possible. Oni never tells her anything, just that he'd given a few more ideas in exchange and shut up and take the help already girl.

()()()()(()

"Rin!" A hand claps down on her shoulder and she's whirled around to face Obito's beaming grin, a silver haired boy and a yellow haired older man behind them. "There you..Whoops! Sorry Rei!"

"Oh? Hello there.." The cheery looking older man beams down at her but it's a smile that sets Rei on edge because it's that softness over steel Oni has taught her to look out for. Those who smile so honestly but they wear danger like a pair of comfortable shoes. "You do look like little Rin. You know her Obito?"

"Oh yeah, Rei this is Minato-sensei and that's Bakakashi..he's stupid."

There's a moment of silence before Rei realizes that's literally the end of Obito's introduction and shakes her head but a smile has stolen across her lips because Obito is amusing. She'd forgotten...

"Nohara Rei, Rin's twin. Nice to meet you."

"Are you a ninja too?" Minato asks cheerfully and she can hear Obito gulp next to her, even as the silver haired boy, really this is whom Rin is so in love with? With the drooping eyes and entirely not interested demeanor? Well he is clearly dismissing her.

"No, I was disqualified because my chakra levels will never permit me to be a genin." Rei says evenly and she's buried the pain and the anger so deep they don't choke her anymore but they are festering and she knows it as surely as she takes a little venom or poison each time she visits Oni only this one is emotional.

The silver haired boy snorts and Minato seems taken aback. Perhaps if things were different she'd be drawn into a talk, she'd get to know her sister's team. But there's no point to it because they are in a world she is not so she just turns to Obito and manages a weak smile. Because he tried, and it's always nice that Obito tries to involve everyone. "Rin said she was going by the hospital first. You may be able to catch her."

"Okay! Thanks Rei!" Obito grins at her again and the three are off as if never there.

Her blood is rushing in her ears at how easily Obito left without even a goodbye at the thought of getting to see Rin..

It sounds like wasps buzzing these days.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Part two of Nohara Rei

()()()()()()

Rei ends up spending time with her sister and only her sister one lazy summer afternoon. The girls have their feet in a stream and are just talking about so much of nothing. It was heart soothingly peaceful leaving Rei to understand she had forgotten how much she loves doing this with Rin.

"So then Obito goes and falls _off_ the branch.."

Rei doesn't mind hearing about their exploits. Not when it is just them because Rin doesn't react as Rei would, and so it's hard to be upset. Oh she's still jealous her sister is a ninja, but it's been almost a year now. A year and Rei has a grace to her as she moves now that Rin does not, Rei's eyes flicker about as a habit. She's making progress with Oni's studies, the strange quiet boys who come and get her to work with her in the middle of the night without her parents or twin even knowing; who barely talk and never show emotion. She has never once asked about them since Oni told her over a year ago he'd called in a favor for her and so she takes the hint to never bring anything up.

So when Rin chatters on and it sounds more like a bunch of friends having playground adventures, it's hard for Rei to be as jealous as she was once upon a time. Hard, but not impossible.

"You're so quiet.." Rin says and Rei looks over, smiles.

"I like listening to my nee-chan." And she does. She can smooth over the envy and the self doubt for a time to pretend, here in the sunlight.

So Rin tells her more about the boys. She talks with soft blushes and sighs about Kakashi and it makes Rei chuckle.

"What! He's..he's.."

"I'd prefer someone who wanted to be with me." Rei says and she shrugs a shoulder. "Over someone impressive..but it is not my crush we are talking about." She means it though, she's been overlooked and pushed aside as so many are who cannot be ninja. Unlike them though, she _wanted_ and so there's a deep ache that will never leave her. Perhaps it is petty of her but she also cannot picture herself with any of the good 'civilian' boys. Not when Oni's words whisper in the back of her mind and she seeks exits and shadowy spots to observe. Where how they stand and speak are clear signs to her. When that dark slightly less than sane laugh of his permeates her thoughts and she wonders if they would even be _aware_ should she walk by and all it would take is a scratch, a tiny bite from a needle..nothing they would notice until she was long gone.

"Do you like anyone, Nee-chan?" Rin asks and her eyes are so soft and hopeful that Rei sighs and thinks of the most likely boy she could even consider in such a way as to indulge her sister's momentary silliness..and the irony sits thick upon her tongue.

"No, but I do like how Obito makes me laugh." She does, she always has but he cannot be swayed. Rei's affection is that of a once friend anyways, someone he rarely sees and while she likes his company she can safely say she has never been around the boy to decide if it could be anything more in time. Not that he'd ever switch his gaze from her sister.

"That'd be perfect!" Rin clasps her hands together with a laugh. "It really would! Oh, if I could have Obito as a brother and you with Kakashi as one..wouldn't it be perfect?!" And Rei hasn't seen Rin laugh like this in so many years..not since she was kicked out of the academy and her bitterness began to poison her time with her sister so Rei simply yields.

"Yeah." Because what harm can it do?

()()()()()

"Your sister putting fool ideas in your head, little wasp." Oni mutters when she comes in the next day and she doesn't even think for a moment on how he knows, because she has learned a long time ago for an old man with no chakra, he has ears and eyes and fingers..everywhere.

"It did no harm to play along."

"Oh...?" And there's that heavy drawl to his voice and he will say nothing, teach nothing, until she explains so Rei sits down and gives in. She has learned not to resist when she is here, Oni is the master and she yields.

"Her romantic ideas cannot pan out. One does not realize or return the affection, the other would not turn theirs from her to me. You did ask me to act as much as a normal girl so I did not draw suspicion with my visits." And he had, she looks up and his bulging eyes twitch but the gap tooth leer is there.

"Good..good..just remember girl..you have no room to actually feel for those things. Play with them, fake the emotions, but never let them dig in. They'll distract you and when you get distracted.." his cane slams down, crushing a fly that had just gone by. "You've got no chakra of your own and never will, little wasp. You will _always_ be one strike from death. Don't let them get close enough to give it."

"Hai, Oni-seishou." And as she closes her eyes it is not so hard to leave the dreams where they were with Rin, because everyone their age with the war is going to be ninja or avoiding anything else to work..so it is not as though Rei knows anyone anyways..

"Now then..where would you be hiding, how would you strike..if I gave you ..." and he goes to pull down one of his old weapons, he sets it down and the quizzes begin.

()()()()()()

"Rei-chan won't you come see us off? It's going to be a big mission tomorrow.." Rin is saying as chipper as ever, she's flittering about because of something, Rei's not really paying attention as she chuckles and at some point Obito has come by and yet..Rin escapes into the market stalls after some trinket that's caught her eye.

"She's really worked up.." She says softly and Obito sighs.

"Bakakashi got a promotion.." He is sulking and Rei looks over at him amused. Perhaps because he seems so upset his rival is ahead, where Rei is so far behind..

"Well in time I bet you'll beat him out." Obito is giving her a strange look and Rei shrugs. They're about to go on a mission..she can cheer him up since her sister is off being so oblivious. "I'll never have the chance to go as far as you and Rin can Obito..so go twice as far for me too."

"You really wanted to be a ninja, Rei? I mean..you never seemed.." He shifts and she sighs but smiles. Because Obito is there and she's missed company that wasn't serious and drilling her on things she's not entirely comfortable with. It's hard not to like Obito, he's too kind.

"I practiced until my fingers bled, I ran until I gasped for air..I don't do things small, Obito." She confesses and when she looks up, his goggles are doing little to obscure his serious look. It's the first time Rei feels like someone is really seeing her and so she gives a tiny smile. "I thought maybe I still could..even when I heard about the lack of my chakra but then I saw some genin one day and how they sped up..I can't be a ninja, I can't be one who protects.." in the back of her mind the buzzing calls out and hisses almost because she isn't learning to protect. She's learning how to infiltrate and kill, to interrogate and silently remove. It's so different than what she wanted to do some day but it is the only option to be _more_ that has come to her and so she takes it, ignoring the mud that she is going to be wading through. How her dreams have been scattered and leaving only torn memories behind.

"I wanted it so badly Obito...but you know, maybe it's just meant for those with talent."

"What's that make me then?" He says with a pout and Rei laughs, feels it to the bottom of her lungs as she hasn't in a long time and smiles. "Dork. You have talent. Just different kinds than 'Bakakashi.'"

And she means it, but for Obito's pride she pretends to not see him wiping his eyes.

"I think you'd really have been a good kunoichi.." Obito says and Rei chuckles, seeing their sensei and other teammate come she pats his shoulder, knowing Rin is going to be too distracted so she'll tell her goodbye in the morning. But she really doesn't want to stand around as the two pale haired boys on her sister's team shuffle as they cannot talk to her, because she's just..not. Which is good because if anyone knew what she was learning...Oni-seishou had been very clear about the fact that would likely be her end. Not that Rei sees the separation tactic for what it is. So instead she gives a last heartfelt smile to Obito, ignoring the rest of his team coming up.

"And I _know_ you already are a fine ninja, Obito."

If she'd known those would be the last words she'd say to the boy alive..she wouldn't have changed a thing.

()()()()()()()()

The news of his death is hard. She doesn't take his eye being worn by Bakakashi well and is ever so grateful he hides it yet, it stings and all the more because it is hidden. It isn't fair..but she cannot say that because Rin is falling apart and most nights Rei climbs into Rin's bed to hold her sister while she cries.

"Why'd it have to be Obito.." Rin whimpers and Rei's throat is tight as her eyes fill with tears, but Oni's teachings have already gone deep and with the loss of such a bright person, a better one than Rei for certain, it seems she's a little more hollowed.

She goes to Oni and sighs. "I'm ready to learn to distance myself.." She says softly and she doesn't miss the unholy pleasure her words bring him.

"You lost someone.."

"I lost a friend."

"Good...that will make this easier." And it is sick and twisted but the ache of knowing one of the few people who she had to talk to is gone, it's selfish but she knows it.

"I'm..not a nice person.." She mumbles and Oni laughs as she comes to that confession as she's slicing herbs for a new poison he walked her through. One she'd be trying on herself like so many others. Little by little she's getting familiar with mild poisoning symptoms and learning to work through pain and discomfort. Some days she can take the stronger ones but they cannot do it too often for it would seem strange if she were to be sick all the time even if her low chakra means getting sick more often _is_ likely. No one knows she's visiting Oni or why, after all. Rei still visits other elders, learning what she can just from their stories.

Oni has taught her though that without actual chakra beyond that which all things possess, she's invisible. Why would anyone care what a slip of a girl is up to? Because Rin is viewed as an adult with the headband she wears but it will take Rei another six years or so before she has the same consideration.

"No you aren't, little wasp. Those who are come rarely but most of us are just dying embers. The good ones? You'll come to see them and their blinding light and you know what will happen little wasp? You'll want to snuff them out. Not because of anything more than the good ones will otherwise tarnish. Watch them crumble and dim and sometimes they explode into a raging fire and other times they suck out the light of others as they falter and then go out. You snuff them out when they're still vibrant and they don't have that happen."

His words twist her innards cruelly but for the first time it does as Oni wants, he watches the girls black eyes dim and her shiver at the idea. He sees her picture the friend she lost turning into one of the many hollow eyed ninja about Konoha, imagine it happen to the glorious light of her sister...

She unconsciously takes a step away from the light and further into the shadows as the realization hits her. Because for those of them that are dwellers of the shade the bright light is a beacon, but it blazes forth to expose their faults. The longer she's in the muck and mire that accumulates in the shadows the less she'll tolerate the light.

Oni smirks. He knows. In time her sister will burn her and the scars from that will be exactly what he needs to finally give the little wasp her stinger. She's nothing else to give herself to so she's crammed years of study and practice into this short year and a half he's had her. The girl oozes talent, genius driven by insatiable drive instead of innate. He finds himself wondering how long it will be before the purity of her sister is either snuffed out or roaring into destruction.

Hopefully soon. He'd like to ensure there is nothing to lure his little wasp back to Konoha when he's sealed her path to leave it. He doesn't have that much longer before he'll need to force his hand after all.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I have no idea why I am enjoying this one. I have no plot planned it's just happening. Have moved it to it's own story now and spent some time tweaking the cover image for the changes to Rei vs her twin.

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After Obito it seemed the world was a little darker and Rin spent a lot of time around her. Rei..couldn't say she minded. It wasn't as though she had many friends out there, a few people she was familiar with yes, but not friends.

"It's so quiet." Rin mumbled and Rei nodded.

"Do you wish to talk about it?" Rei never knew with her twin, some days she did, some days the very sight of an Uchiha, or the color orange would send the sweeter girl into tears.

"Why aren't you more affected? Obito he was..he was.."

"He's gone and there's nothing, and nobody who shall ever be able to take his place." Rei said simply and sighed. "I'm grieving still too Rin, I just.." She shrugged. How could she explain that she visited an old man who didn't just tell her stories and let her help clean up after him but that he was trying to teach her distancing techniques and she was so tired all the time? That as much as she'd liked Obito she hadn't been his teammate, hadn't been so close. Emotionally she just felt wrung dry and it was a strange sensation. "I'm sorry. Did you want to walk anywhere after we get the order placed for mom?"

"Yeah. Maybe, go with me to the memorial stone?"

"Okay." Though inwardly Rei wanted to scream at the thought. Because the only other ninja she knew that was still active was Rin, and the very idea of Rin being reduced to just a name was sickening. She moved, her fingers tangling with Rin's as they walked. "Should we bring him flowers? Or a snack?"

"A..lets just..just flowers." Rin smiled at her through watery eyes and Rei smiled back. They shifted the conversation to herbs in the area, mostly Rei carefully paying attention and asking questions and Rin sharing her knowledge. It was an aspect Rei wasn't learning from Oni-shishou so she was very happy to hear it from her sister.

"So it's..wax..and..camphor?"

Rin nodded, explaining the basic steps of a new muscle soother she'd learned that was even more effective when combined with chakra, but that even Rei could make and use. "There's lots of other things too..you can use cinnamon, or pine.."

"Would you mind showing me? When we're home?"

"I'd love to!" And for just a moment the shadows were chased out of Rin's eyes and Rei felt the buzzing in her mind soothe and settle at the sight. It was good to know sometimes she could be a good sister still.

They spent the afternoon wandering after both talking to the name on the infamous stone. Rin was still going out on missions, though with an altered team and it often set Rei's nerves aflame. The only real solution she had was to go to the various elders she visited..of whom they dwindled every month as they passed away. It was..it was a hard feeling to realize the sweet old lady who had been bedridden and told her tales of how she'd met her first love, they'd been arranged to wed others and yet after the second war their children grown and spouses dead along with half their various kids combined, they married.

There was just an empty bed there and one of the nurses took pity to tell Rei that the dear woman had passed in the night the previous evening. Rei closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. At least she was back with her husband..

But why did it feel so ..ominous every time someone died?

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"Again." It was early in the morning and Rei had no idea where the strange quiet boy that came to get her so often had brought her. It wasn't like she had the chakra sense to find out. All she could do is hold on when he'd run somewhere and not complain about the blindfold. Nodding she exhaled and once again rushed him only to focus on evading. If she could see a chance to try for a pressure point she would, but there was no slow combat here. She'd learned the forms and the katas it was at full ninja speed utterly beating her senseless. This is what her reality was, as someone who couldn't use chakra. She had to earn every second of time the hard way before she would get hit.

Little by little she was lasting. If she could even touch him -rarely- it would count because all of Rei's weapons were to be assumed poisoned. It was why she had them provided to her by her sparing partner. Breathing hard, she couldn't breathe soft though she tried..she'd taken to wearing the most cheesy stereotypical ninja headgear when they sparred because a scarf around her lower face was a weapon to strangle her with. Oh she still _could_ and knew how, because her anonyminoty was her biggest advantage but for these lessons she currently had just her eyes showing which helped hide her features if anyone did go by.

Only when she was almost falling down was she brought back and slipped into the room, the boy then gone without a single hair moving from Rin's face as she slept.

It was terrifying when you thought about it. Rin was a ninja, and had no idea another one had snuck in, stolen her sister, and then come back. Rei went to the bathroom, wiping a washcloth over her face and over her body but she'd shower properly in the morning.

Morning, came far too soon.

"Another mission?"

"Ah. This one is going to be a bit longer." Rin smiled at her. "But Kakashi and I haven't been out in a while..even though we'll have someone else with us.."

"When we get back let's go out for tea? I'll buy."

"Thanks Rei! Okay..I have everything..I'll see you soon." Rin hugged her tightly, leaving Rei to read her books that Rin had just dumped on her. Likely as a sort of apology for the short notice but their parents weren't even home to say goodbye to. They'd be upset no doubt but at least Rin would leave a note.

Rin never came home.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: This was actually one of the first scenes I pictured when this story idea came to mind..

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Some parents can't handle the loss of a child, and resort to almost unstable levels of denial as a coping mechanism. When one of the children looks so similar to the one that is lost, it can cause this to worsen. Rei wasn't aware of her parent's haunted eyes and shaking forms after the news came she was adrift herself. Rin, beautiful Rin. The one whom had always been better, been more, was just gone. At the hand of her own teammate even and Rei found herself feeling more like a doll as she attended the funeral, shifted through her days. She spent a lot of hours in the park she had loved to go to with Rin..where even after their separation they had found time here gathering plants and speaking of medicine.

It was all fading though, swiftly, in a way that left Rei feeling like she was clawing at the memorial stone with her fingers and not leaving a sign. Because every moment her memories were a little less clear. Every moment if she wanted to recall Rin it was more like she'd have to think of where they were different because grief and loss were fogging up her recall and the pain was so sharp. So exceptionally brutal.

Rei wasn't blind, she saw how Oni radiated delight at her loss and yet she couldn't be angry. He was insane, he was twisted and foul but he offered her a solution and right then? The way he gave her to channel all this and give her restless heartache direction was a blessing and she ignored the price to her soul as she took it.

One of the boys, the silent boys who trained her and showed no emotion was in the downstairs room and Oni walked her through a procedure. He couldn't do it with his mangled hands, it required a certain delicacy of motion but he told her how to do it. The only thing more terrifying than poisoning her first victim, was that the boy was so silent and agreeing to the process until he couldn't help but scream. Oni stood there, hands heavy on her shoulder's as two other of the quiet masked figures just _observed_ the aftermath. Learning as she was.

Oni leaned down over her shoulder and cackled softly. "Does it churn your stomach, little wasp? You knew you carried metaphorical poison in your veins..the physical chemical you injected in him is just a touch of what you could do with all that I've taught you. But tell me little wasp, tell me what you see, what is wrong. What should be happening right now but the little broken doll can't feel enough to experience?"

And though she shook like a leaf under the spider's pinchers, deep within his lair she spoke. "He's not afraid enough. It's a partial hallucinogen..he should be terrified.."

The rasping cackle was her answer. "Very good..he should be seeing his nightmares. They should be dancing across his eyelids and making him vomit from fear but he's too empty. This is what you do not want little wasp. Carry hate and anger and jealousy, bank your loathing and that twisted curiosity which is why you haven't averted your eyes. Because what's more disgusting right now? That he's soiling himself in the pain, strapped down as he is..or that he's so empty that's all he can feel?"

Oni's cackling undulated as he felt the pulse of the little wasp speed up, her form stiff. But she hadn't looked away. Neither had the two observing and yet they had not grasped the depth of suffering the one strapped to the table _could_ have been dealing with. Rei did, and Rei had administered the concoction.

Wouldn't Danzou be jealous?

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Rei kept avoiding her parents at home. Her room was never a sanctuary, not when she was so often taken from it but without Rin there it felt...like she was an unwelcome visitor. Her parents either ignored her or started when they saw her out the corner of their eye even though Rei's features were slightly different. It was clear they didn't see her anymore.

The uneasy peace wasn't going to be able to continue for long.

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It came to a head only a few months later.

"Don't move that.." Her mother said almost hysterically as Rei went to put Rin's old scarf in the closet.

"It's covered in dust, mom."

"Don't touch it!" Her mother screamed. "Don't..don't.."

Rei flinched and glared down at the stupid pale purple scarf. It had been months now since the funeral and yet anything that was Rin's -had been Rin's -wasn't allowed to be moved. Touched. Her own room was starting to feel like she was living in a shrine to a ghost and it was taking it's toll. Every time she tried to clean up, this would happen. Even if it was something of Rei's her mother would almost collapse because what if it had been something Rin had touched that last day? It wasn't healthy.

"This isn't okay, mom. I need to clean up in here. It's making me sneeze and.."

"shut up."

The words set her off. "Shut up? Shut..Mom I get it but I live in here! This is still my room and-"

"It's Rin's room too!"

"Was mom. It WAS her room. She's gone!" And there was an aching maw because no matter how jealous she was she did love her sister and it hurt and she just needed to move on and not having her parents support was hurting. It was worse than the things she'd been doing now because the knowledge that if Rin had seen what she could do to a person, what she had been doing when Oni had a new method he wanted her to try and there was one of those strange silent boys who had been told to volunteer..as much as she obeyed to torture them they obeyed to be strapped down. Their comrades observing. No, if Rin had known she wouldn't have wanted to share the room with her older twin at all, she would have been horrified.

"Why did it have to be my baby! Why couldn't it have been you!?"

The scarf fell from her hand. Rei trembled and breathed. Slowly. Just like Oni-seishou had taught her. She waited to hear the apology and to shove it in the back of her mind like so many encounters. Just more pitch for the festering wound inside of her that she fed regularly instead of focusing on how far into the mire she'd descended.

"Why couldn't it have been you..Rin was such a sweet girl..such a delicate..so.."

Rei felt her body flash cold and her mother wasn't even crying as she said it. She wasn't having a delusion she..

"You don't mean that.." She whispered out, hoping. But inside? Rei knew it. That's what everyone seemed to think when they looked at her these days. Everyone slid over her as if she was just the refuse, the leftovers. And that is when they didn't know she was more than the bookworm civilian girl who spent her time with the elders waiting for their last breath.

"Rin was always the good girl." Her mother says and she's back pedaling but not taking back her words and Rei looks at her. Black eyes meeting deep green and at least her mother doesn't have to look into eyes that are so much like Rin's. Rin's eyes, judging her and finding her wanting. Rei swallows and before she can second guess it Oni's words that have brought her such twisted solace are flowing out as a maggot infested ash coated offering.

"That's probably why it was her. Ever notice that the world is a disgusting and foul place? Imagine what she would have done in years as a ninja, she would have become like me, lost and feeling like she was left behind. At least the Rin we remember stays all the things you preferred about her." She's wanted to say it since the funeral, and the whispering began but she knew it was a bad idea. Even though her mother doesn't know why it's such a good thing Rin never became like Rei it was a terible idea to suggest anything going against her mother's mindset these days. It's enough to make Rei wonder if the Nohara or the Oiwa side of her family is prone to madness for surely it skipped Rin but Rei knows she's cracked and breaking with Oni filling her hollow areas with his volatile poisons but at least it is _something._

But her mother is not well lately and with those words, her mother pales and leaves the room but there's a strange glow to her eyes that does not bode well.

When her father comes back that evening and hears it out much like when Rin tattled on her as toddlers they are sitting in the couch, with Rin's favorite chair empty and coated in dust, he speaks on behalf of her sobbing mother who hasn't left her room until now.

"Don't be here come morning, and don't take anything of Rin's."

Rei is sitting there stunned as her father goes upstairs. It's a bad dream. It can't be happening..and yet Rei is too practical and too untrusting so in some way she's known that this was coming. When they started acting so unhealthy about her dead twin. Even though Rei isn't as pretty she still looks like Rin and she's not the one they want. Her hair is too long and her markings too dull and thin, her eyes too dark..they want the cheerful smiles and the sweet nature. The one that made everyone fall in love with the little medic prodigy.

Not the one who is learning how to torture and poison her tutors under the guidance of a Konoha war criminal.

Rei feels like she should be crying but there's a dark void inside her so she goes and steals her father's empty storage scrolls and takes all of her things, and anything of Rin's that they wouldn't realize was hers. Mostly her medical texts and notes because they'll be short hand and ..she puts them back. Because she needs to leave Rin behind in this dusty shrine of their room. Mentally she cracks a little more but the compartmentalizing is needed. She takes her own belongings, she goes and loots items in the house she knows they won't miss but will help her. She takes all the cash from the places she knows her father stores it and every book she can. Because whatever guilt will be there for kicking her out won't let him scold her or come after her for it. There's a lot of things she takes without really paying attention to with that in mind because she _can_ and Oni-seishou has always insisted she never make it where she needs to return to a site. So she's treating this like an assassination attempt and anything that is not easily traced back to the Nohara..and a few things that _are_ because she may need to claim her father's name or her mother's Oiwa some day. So she takes formal kimono's and clothing from her mother's younger and slimmer days because it does not matter if it is out of style Rei will not know how to pay her bills and anything she doesn't need to buy later is a good thing. She takes every scrap of potentially useful items and is just relieved that her father had bought the more expensive storage scrolls that seal and unseal without the need for chakra and handsigns thanks to her and her mother. A little blood will unseal them for her, relying on the family connection. To seal them all she needs is the password.

Of course. It's 'Nohara'. Such a lack of security, but then he never did go further than gennin.

There's a lump in her throat and her eyes and nose sting but Rei ignores it. For good measure she takes almost all of the weapons she knows how to use even if they were decorative or her fathers or even Rin's because what use does her dead sister have for shuriken and kunai now? And walks out the door. Her half of the room is bare, even her blankets and pillow sealed up because she doesn't know where she's going now. She would have taken the mattress but her father still had his old gear from his active days and it may be outdated but it's all in a scroll for her now. It may end up utterly necessary if her next stop turns her away..

She's shoved all her belongings and the scrolls in a back pack though and goes to stop by Oni-seishou's house. She lets herself in, glad she still has the key round her neck and over to his frail form. He is fresh out of the hospital but still sitting, lost more hair, lost more weight..

"Hey..can I sleep on the floor tonight?"

His eyes glance over her and the man sighs heavily, and it's a contented sound. "Tell me what happened.."


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I love the reviews, and I apologize but I cannot give anything away by answering them. :)

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"You had them placed under a genjutsu." Rei says softly as she watches the corpse idly, examining it with faint touches and her eyes only. They are in another location, one that Oni's friend apparently has. It's the only way she can get access to a corpse to learn some of the other poisons and methods of body disposal one without chakra has. Where they are she does not know, she never objects to being blindfolded. What she does know is it is cold down here and there's a lot of the strange quiet boys, and few of them are probably girls judging by their bone structure, and she is _always being watched._ It is ..eerie. Especially because she knows to a single one of them they could cast a jutsu and be done with the corpses she's had to learn how to handle the hard and messy way. It's a constant reminder that her life is so much more complicated being without enough chakra as she is. Nor is she blind to it's manipulation.

It doesn't matter. Oni-seishou told her they were coming down and so she followed. She has no reason to not simply give herself over to his tutelage fully these days. In a way being aware of his manipulations has allowed her to keep her sanity she thinks. She's gotten compartmentalizing down to a fine practiced art and is always shoving her real self away so she doesn't falter. But these lessons, though she hates them, she knows she needs. At least if she ever wants to be able to defend herself and not be hauled off or executed thought to be a murderer on the loose. The irony..is nauseating. She'd be persecuted by shinobi themselves for doing the same they do but without the headband and someone giving her orders.

"Your parents? It only sped things up. Less messy. I didn't feel like listening to the sniveling for months or years. Assuming I had that time. Took you long enough to put the pieces together but I suppose you never had chakra to use..wouldn't pay attention to the signs." Oni says and taps one of his cut off knuckle bone stubs on a part of the bloating corpse. The lesson is simple and one he waited for her to learn on her own. Just because she cannot use a genjutsu doesn't mean it cannot affect all of those around her. It'll sting and sit with her all the more, help keep her from getting too fixated positvely or negatively on anyone else. He hadn't wanted to wait to have someone cast the genjutsu because otherwise she may have turned her hate and grieving anger upon the Hattake boy and that was a prized pig wrapped in so much security she'd have been ashes on the wind long ago. He'd merely taken action. That she'd hesitate to trust, to let one in because all it would take is a genjutsu on them to make them turn away would keep her apart from the civilian's. And certainly, she wouldn't risk being around ninja when she wasn't one and couldn't safely tell why she did things as she did. It made Oni's eyes darken in malicious amusement. At this point it was only her youth and familiarity to Konoha keeping her here. He was nearly done.

"See this? The discoloration? Something's hidden in the cavity. You'll want to make an incision away from the area in case it's trapped."

How much Rei's world has changed. She's thirteen. Rin died less than two years ago and in that time she's only seen her parents from afar. Oh she figured out that they had help to push her away a long time ago she just never had a chance to bring it up. And Oni had stated that when she's being observed by the leader of the silent boys it's best to deflect attention. So bringing up how slow she was to notice? And talking? Useful. Because she knows she does not want the leader of Root to see her as anything more than an idle amusement of Oni's, she needs them all to think of her as so much less than one of the ninja and subtle ways are what she's learned at the broken feet of the insane assassin Konoha feared to let go. Carefully she makes the initial puncture with a senbon, waiting, sniffing the air, making sure she sticks out her tongue as some poison's have a taste to them when air borne. Then she brings the candle near. Nothing. "Just rigor mortis gasses.." She grabs one of the knives he's making her use instead of kunai, though she's been learning with both. Use a weapon people expect to see especially the victim's own and it's better for staying hidden.

Which is why any time she's not out in public Rei wears full gloves and her hair is not only pulled up but under a hood. Less likely to leave hairs behind. These are _habits_ she is having woven into her very nature. Even in public she's tempted to wear her gloves, missing them. She feels so exposed without them.

"Seishou. Did you have so little faith in me?" She asks idly as she slowly peels back the skin and starts the careful probing of the location. The cuts are not medically precise, they are made to look more like it was done in battle. Everything is thought of when she's trained in a procedure to keep her involvement from being found. The sheer level of deception knowledge that Oni possesses and is passing on to her tells a very different tale of the Warring Era and before it than the history books would have you learn. What she is being taught is how the regular people, and those who blended among them, took out ninja. Not the benevolent helpful forces at war with each other. No, ninja were destruction and mayhem to a small village and many times they just wanted them gone. Ninja can cause massive amounts of destruction in their battles, a single one in the midst of a town or field could destroy a town's ability to survive. When those like Oni's clan showed up and could remove the ninja problem and then leave so they could safely say they did not know what happened to the shinobi? Though she still did not know what Oni had ever gotten for it. He was _adamant_ that they never took items as payment unless simple food and the like. Nothing that could be tracked.

Perhaps just sick satisfaction.

"No. Your parents though would have given you false hope All the genjutsu did is speed up how long it would have taken. You ran into them didn't you little wasp?"

"I did, they did not recognize me." She said calmly as she started fishing around carefully in the organs. There was always a chance he would have a trap or the like inside, ninja did stranger things on a regular basis. Nor did either Rei or Oni seem to care that they were being watched and listened to.

In truth there were a few topics Oni had given her permission to speak on and used them as a way to give her information while 'lessening' the potential she had to Danzou. Assuming he'd ever see a civilian's benefit to his organization but Oni hates Konoha to the same level Danzou loves it, both sides a twisted obsession and so Oni takes a pleasure from dangling that he has a better trained tool that Danzou has no use for. Old men can be petty.

"They probably still think you're an eleven year old brat." He agreed. "I've told you, the advantage to not being a ninja is no one gives a shit. If you were still going to the academy you could be five years old and they'd give you an apartment and keep an eye on you but as a civilian who isn't begging? Everyone assumes you're living at home and they just don't care enough to ask or wonder. People are absorbed in their own lives." Oni snickered and Rei just hummed in agreement as she pulled out the last of the keys. Really. Keys. Ah well it wasn't in her purpose to question what the boys she'd learned were called part of 'Root' were up to.

"Instead of a thirteen year old brat. Have I missed anything, seishou?"

"No. Well done. Now hide your work."

Oni smirked wickedly as he could see through the genjutsu to the man sitting beside him as Danzou raised a brow watching how calmly Rei slashed at the body.

"She is..obedient. If too talkative."

"She blends that way, Danzou. Really you should have learned by now the best tool is when no one realizes they are there." It was a jab, for the entire point of Root was to be unseen, have no existence besides the mission. But voids drew attention. Not that Oni was going to help Danzou with his little project any further than he had been forced to over the years. Even Danzou saw the mostly toothless and fingerless old man as crazy and frail, a dog without a bite. That his apprentice was a girl who couldn't use chakra and his agents 'trained' only to constantly inform him of how far below even gennin skills she was left Danzou feeling he knew everything and now he merely humored the trainings and experience because it was still information learned that Oni wouldn't have relinquished otherwise. The elder was frail by far more than Danzou and perhaps had just a year or two. If it meant learning yet more techniques locked in Oni's brain, to empower his private army, Danzou would tolerate his useless little tool.

In looking for a blade, Danzou ignored the garrote.

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It is cold. Rarely does Konoha feel such a bite of the weather but right now all of the skies turn the generally mild temperature raining and chilled to a level that keeps souls huddled in shelter. It is the best time for her to go out and gather certain plants and Rei is feeling stifled in the dark house with Oni snoring. Pulling on her waterproof attire she has slipped out with her tools and bag for gathering within moments of deciding. It is only once she is kneeling in the thick mud, tugging at the stubborn plants with such deep roots that she feels her shoulders loosen.

Rei is no fool. She _knows_ now that Oni has no barriers to teaching her that he is twisting her. He's giving her tools and methods but though she's practiced poison's and witnessed interrogations and fought, she has yet to kill.

Some part of her is horrified because Oni hasn't found a way..so the only logical thing is he's planning something. Tilting her face up to the sky Rei's black eyes are closed as she breathes in and out.

Almost two years since she lost Rin. More since Obito. Their lights went out and Rei often catches herself feeling as if she's drowning or wishes to scratch her skin off. As if somehow it's a terrible nightmare and if she can just wake up Rin will be giggling at catching her drooling in her sleep. Or Obito will have some insane tale to share.

Instead she's alone.

The worst part is it is on purpose, the scroll on 'isolating and controlling your victim' left open for her perusal. It's a worn and faded thing and she suspects it is done in Oni-seishou's own hand writing before they took most his fingers. Every step in there she can recall happening and it was another test. There are so many of them these days she feels as if she is always a step away from some horror yet unknown.

She read the words. She'd been isolated certainly but much of that had been her own and her families doing, Oni just increased it. She'd slowly been introduced to things that made her just a little too uncomfortable but never enough she would turn and run. Just shy of her breaking point. As soon as she relaxed, adjusted, compartmentalizing the new issue..it would be set a little further up.

The bonds around her were all in her head because she had read it all over, realized how perfectly she'd just handed herself over to Oni-seishou back in those days she had approached, and her response to the knowledge was to roll up the scroll and put it away.

Rei no longer had Rin, so she only seemed to feel joy in being a little better each day. She had no chakra compared to a nin, but Rei was agile, she was smart, she was fast and she planned ahead. As set apart from the civilian's as from the shinobi. Rei could blend better than they could hope to in crowds and if not for the Nohara facial markings it was entirely likely that Rei would be utterly forgettable.

But _she knew better._ Because Rei was only thirteen but she could walk silently, she could pick locks and pockets, give tiny blows and strikes with sharp weapons that wouldn't be seen as she passed by and her skills grew every day.

She'd become more endeared to the moniker of Little Wasp that Oni-seishou used for her than her own name.

Rei was slipping away, and rather than risk losing herself entirely she was consciously trying to absorb some of the books she'd taken from her home, ones that had belonged to her father back when he was an active nin on how to separate your work from your personal. It was damaging mentally, but she'd done so much as Oni asked. That tiny little spark though, that had belonged to her sister, she hid behind the shade of her obedience but in private she fed it tiny twigs and memories to keep it alive.

If she could do nothing else, completing the journey she had begun when she sought out the old man Konoha had crippled and bound rather than risk setting free or losing the knowledge..Oni should be dead. He was frighteningly long lived, having been a whelp when Konoha was still new and not caught until the third Hokage. Indeed he'd been caught before but escaped. He had a hatred of Konoha that was palpable but everyone saw him as just a frail old man now with useful information that was a little more forgotten day by day.

Like Rei, Oni hid in plain sight.

He kept all his frighteningly sharp intelligence it was just heavily coated with revenge madness. His body would not last more than a year or two more at this rate and Rei tried to think, kneeling there in the rain. What would become of her then?

There were no answers.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: You know I really didn't think this would get so much attention. I am very happy to be proven wrong. I've come to like Rei.

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"Boar. Tiger, monkey, goat, swan, rooster.." Oni called out idly as he puttered around his kitchen, always partially turned to watch Rei as she flickered between hand signs. When it was one that did not exist she had to guess which one it was in the sequence. Yes, she did not have chakra, but if you knew the signs you could predict what came next. Why most of the civilian's did not bother to learn the signs was a mystery to her. It only made sense, if you _knew_ you also knew how to predict and avoid what was coming. The common signs between gennin level ninja were almost always the same jutsu's. So theoretical knowledge on over forty techniques was ingrained in her.

It didn't mean Oni didn't adore testing her at random. Sometimes the Root boys would actually fling jutsu at her in their sessions. For them it was working on herding a civilian, something they may need to do at times without causing damage. For her it was survival.

Rei also had to contend with the fact that wherever Oni had come from, they did have a few signs that simply were not used in Konoha but he insisted she know backwards and forwards and she was even learning the one handed adaption for a sequence in particular.

"It's what we used to identify. Only half mind, the other would do the other half so you need to know it. It's also why we had a few signs in there that didn't exist. Throws the ninja off, they ignore it."

She'd certainly never heard of bat, mantis, spider, or void. Yet these were one she learned to contort her fingers into, to recognize apart from the common symbols. He was always exacting for all he couldn't demonstrate, nor were they illustrated so it was time after time of "Right hand pinky, higher." Until she'd hit the spot, then it'd be 'Out' or 'In' or 'Hold' until her fingers were contorted properly.

"Why?" She'd asked only once, shortly after moving in with him and for once it was not a leer but a dark and dangerous look in his eyes.

"You'll need to know that one if you're ever to be found by another trained to be like you, little wasp. You cannot trust anyone once you set foot out my door, but those who know the signs and the ways you at least will have camaraderie. Don't trust them, don't let your guard down because it is in that knowledge you can betray each other..but you can help as well."

Oni had strange ideas of what comrades were.

Then again..the reminder of Rin slipped into her mind. She had been close to her comrades, loved one and been loved by another and in the end two were dead and the final one broken.

Rei couldn't say she much liked the sound of 'comrade' in her thoughts. Even allies seemed to stretch to far, or teammates. That is what Root was, and she may have let them blindfold and take her places but she never _trusted._

"I don't even trust you." She'd said aloud and the laughter that filled the air was malicious and delighted.

"Good! Never trust. Trust will get you killed. Besides, what have I done to earn your trust little wasp? Tell me one thing that I have done." He sneered at her, the madness riding him at that moment and so she knew it was the harsh and abrasive truth he wanted, something that had gone against every bit of proper upbringing she'd had. It was not Oni's way.

"You gave me a place to sleep and nightmares to steal that sleep away. You've given me a trade I can never claim, and kept me out of ever finding a roll in the world that I don't force my way into." She answered instead and for the first time she felt anger and loathing towards the old man. He leaned over, and those eyes which were so bulbous in his emaciated frame were shining in unbridled insanity as his lips stretched wide.

"Exactly. I've given you everything and stolen it all away. I've hollowed you out and shown you how to fill the void that ever grows inside. You are nearly ready little wasp.."

For just a moment the idea sank deep into her skull as his breath washed over her. She could run, bow to the Hokage and spill out everything. On Oni, on Danzou and Root.

And then she'd be taken apart in T&I and likely locked away for life or executed because who cared about a little civilian, one who could so easily never be missed?

Rei grimaced and then slowly nodded. "I don't know _why_ you want me to hate you..."

Oni cackled. "But you're nearly there. Nearly. The best part little wasp..is you hate that you're still going to ask to learn more. Now..Bat, spider, bat, monkey.."

Her fingers formed the third sequence before he could call it out. She knew this one, knew it better than her birth name at this point.

Oni's eyes rolled again but there was a smug aura to him that made her stomach churn. "Nearly, little wasp. I think one more year..I can last that long. Can you?"

()()()()()()()()

Rei no longer went down to Root. Danzou had tired of the novelty of Oni taking on an apprentice as she didn't seem to learn anything. He ceased sending his agents to train her so she snuck out and practiced at a training field on her own. As long as you had a headband protector people left you alone. They were surprisingly _easy_ to forge. As if the idea someone would never occurred to them. She'd mentioned it once to Oni and the laughter had overcome him so violently he had nearly fallen over, wheezing.

"We did it all the time! When there is chaos they stop checking and once in a village you just slip one on and no one notices! Easy to get close to them. And you found it out all on your own! Yes, I knew you had potential.." He had rambled on then about things that made no sense and yet Rei didn't dare not listen. He called out to people long dead and laughed and cursed the first and second Hokage and their families in various disturbing ways before he finally succumbed to sleep. Only then had Rei slipped out, her crudely fashioned imitation plate indeed not getting a second glance.

How was it so easy?

Because no one was a big enough fool to take the risk is all Rei could think of. As she worked on her stretches and sprints it seemed to her, that she'd gotten very good at taking risks. That she had learned on her own.

()()()()()()()

She nearly ran into Kakashi at the market when she turned fourteen. To keep from seeing Rin in the mirror Rei had let her bangs grow out and fall over her forehead, her hair was to her shoulders just long enough to pull back tightly and she was in one of her mother's old haori and yukata. The fabric fell just so that it didn't catch on her leggings hidden underneath and the leather wrap shoes she wore passed for slippers well enough. Faking clumsiness when she was not in 'work gear' was second nature and she gave a tiny eep, nearly dropping her basket. It let her cast her eyes down and truly, what you could learn about someone from their knees down was surprising.

Ninja sandals, the way the pants were wrapped, and the stance let her know this was someone competent. From the fact his mid thigh was visible they were also about her age. She hadn't expected the grab to her arm to help support her or the choked whisper.

"Rin..?"

She looked up and met the single black eye, not hiding her wince at his comment. "N..no.." Because what if the hand holding her was the one that had killed her sister? Oh she knew the details, ninja gossiped horribly and she always listened about her sister.

"..." there was no verbal response, just a swift flinch as he pulled his hand back, as if burned. A haunted gaze ran over her face, matching the features and doubtlessly thinking of the difference that would have been in the more delicate Rin by this age. It was if he couldn't stop looking at her to see into her sister's lost future.

Rei took a step away, her heart rushing like the buzzing of a wasps wings because _she was not her sister_ and it made her breath catch. No, Rin, sweet Rin would have been smiling and probably badgered the silver haired boy into dating her by now. Rin would have kept her hair short, wanting to look like their Oiwa grandmother, she'd be in ninja gear not civilian. Yet for a moment she felt like she was wearing Rin's ghost.

It made her heart bleed but it also infuriated her.

"Excuse me." She said keeping her words soft, not showing how she felt. Rei was a queen of compartmentalizing at this point as she turned away.

"..I'm sorry." Came the voice and she stiffened. This was _not_ the place for such a conversation.

"So am I." It was vague and likely he took it in an entirely different manner than she meant it as Rei walked away. She didn't look back.

Konoha let the boy who killed her sister, had been part of what had gotten Obito captured..walk free and praised him for his skills stolen with Obito's eye as much as his own work. She didn't think she could ever forgive him for snuffing out the light of the two she had cared for. There was only one thing for it..she shifted the basket and made her way home to tell Oni of the encounter.

If she was crying on the way back, no one stopped her to see why.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: For Fatjack36 and georgia2 who reached out. Your words meant a lot. Thank you.

Warning for a dark chapter.

()()()()()

Rei shuddered on the floor. Her body was wracked with pain and chills as she coughed. Violent spasms that arched through her. Attempts to draw in breath brought in slicing knives to her lungs for all the good it did her as her every cell was on fire. Her nerves were conduits to an electrical storm as her entire system was suddenly drowning in chakra.

Oni had finally showed her what to do.

His little wasp was ready, to sting, to fly. At this point anything else she could learn she needed to be away from Konoha for, so he'd leered at her. Lured her down. Down into the cellar, the damp and the dark beneath his house.

It was all set up for the murder suicide.

From that first meeting Oni had been planning this. She knew it, knew it as well as she was aware of her fingers clawing frantically, feebly, tearing at her own skin to try and make the burning cease. Her jaws were clamped down tightly on the bit of leather he'd insisted she bite down on.

Then he'd made certain her hand signs, the same strange patterns he'd always set her on. Until the cadence was one so familiar her mind flew through them as a meditation.

He'd then instructed her to press her hand to his head and heart after and his eyes had bulged first, his cackling eerie and shrill.

He'd pushed her. Pushed her far enough that hatred dug it's putrid claws into her where he was concerned and she didn't really worry if any of what he demanded would have painful repercussions for him. Because he'd helped pull her from her family, isolate her, make her dependent and flawed. Made her aware of the filth she'd chosen to mire herself in to be _more._

Every bug eyed leer, every insane cackle made sense now as she writhed against the unforgiving floor and tears burned down her face. She was dimly aware of the slumped corpse nearby. Probably still within arms reach.

Oni had his chakra sealed, his fingers mangled. They'd removed the stinger from the wasp. But they'd forgotten like honey bee's that he could dance and weave, teach the patterns still despite his wings plucked.

The kinjutsu he'd held, that Konoha had been so afraid of. That his entire organazation as scattered and secretive as it was. The one that sneered at the concept of shinobi and clans?

He'd taught it to her and she'd been too stupidly unaware to realize it until the last moment. When she found her stinger as it plunged within him.

The hand signs he'd disdained but made her learn could be done mentally with this kinjutsu but it was ever so much more _effective and lethal_ if done in person.

And what it did? Could only be done by someone with pathetic to no chakra already in their coils. Something that no shinobi formally trained could use. Something that was meant for those who truly lived in the darkness and the quiet.

Rei managed to have her eyes focus, the spittle and blood covered scrap of leather falling finally from her aching jaw as she dry heaved in the cold cellar. The smell of bodily functions from her and Oni's corpse- because somehow no one ever mentioned the filth and the odors and fluids that happened with a body.. but it was _there_.

It was all different.

Oni's chakra had blasted her coils open. It coursed through her, a stolen euphoria of power she could use. And then all those half lessons, the fragments and scraps and parts took on new meaning.

She had chakra now. Until it ran out. Then she could steal more, but it was such a part of someone that in order to fully use her kinjutsu she had to kill one. It was flawless though. What good was a chakra tracker on her if they couldn't always find her because if she took on another's, or used up all the stolen chakra she had, it would leave her entirely different to ones senses.

Rei clawed at the walls until she managed to pull herself up by the rotting bookshelves and looked over.

Not a scratch was on Oni. He looked like he'd just fallen, a heart attack. The blood and spit from her, the bile and stomach fluids? It was understandable since she'd 'just found' her elder dead.

No one would check on him for days.

Rei swallowed and then the moment was upon her. She could hide in Konoha, she could make this work but may end up in Danzo's hands, suddenly finally of interest. Or they may cut off her fingers and seal her as much as they had Oni. She was just the newest wasp.

But they didn't _know._ They didn't even think it was possible, the true horror of this forbidden art was unknown to them and Oni had never revealed it.

Nohara Rei was just a freaking damaged nobody civilian girl at fourteen. They never checked on Civilian's..

Rei wiped her mouth on the back of her arm and frowned, eyes narrowed. She knew how to make it. She could go to another town, and another. Her interest back when Rin was alive of herbal methods to heal were known. There were lots of those out there..

She had a cover.

The first thing that Oni had taught her was to detect signs of someone suppressing chakra and the theory behind doing it. You would think suddenly having such a rush in her system would have made her terrible but since Rei's body only knew how to operate on so little, the hiding of her stolen reserves was nearly effortless. She used only the most minute trace to properly seal better all the books and plants and unguents she knew would not be easily replaced. She looted without compunction all the bolt holes and secrets Oni had stashed, clearly having planned for this day. Expecting that she would do as she was.

She was his creature. But he did not know that even the lure of _finally_ having chakra would not outweigh the knowledge if she ran out she'd need to kill again. She was no black widow needing to feed upon her own kind, no mantis.

She was a wasp. If attacked, yes, Rei was willing to end a shinobi or bandit who came at her and along with his life steal his chakra. But she imposed the limit on herself.

No other reason.

With scrolls and supplies in her bag, she pulled her yukata on over her real gear, fixed her longer hair and grabbed a walking staff and herb bag, as so often she did to venture outside the walls for plants. Her papers in tow, Rei walked out of Konoha with her head high, her stolen chakra coiled in her gut under careful control.

No one stopped her, no one questioned.

No one knew.

She was free, with shackles of her own choosing.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Trigger warning of attempted Non-Con. Also this chapter totally took on a life of it's own. If you missed the update yesterday go back one.

()()()()()

The disappearance of Nohara Rei was slid aside after a cursory check. She was a civilian, didn't have enough chakra to track down and frankly hadn't really a place in Konoha. Her parents didn't insist on finding her or pay someone to do so. The elders at the hospital she visited missed her but outside of clans no one gave their elders any of the attention they deserved.

The passing of Oni when he was found later was deemed simply that age finally caught up and they had no reason to suspect the bile long dried on the ground wasn't from him. They'd disposed of the body of one of Konoha's last war criminals and the house was taken down to the studs to house someone else.

That Rei had left Konoha was a mere footnote in the border guard's books. One that marked she'd gone out, shown her papers, and that was that.

Kakashi was a master of pushing away unpleasant truths and while he had meant to seek Rei out, because she was a tiny fragment of one bright soul he'd lost he had honestly intended to look after Rin's sister for her.

But then ANBU demanded his attention and trying to track down a civilian just wasn't that important.

Konoha forgot all about her before a month was out.

()()()()()()()()

Rei found that camping was hard. Unpleasant. You got bugs in places you didn't want, ticks were happy to feed on you and you had to check for them. Starting a fire and keeping it going without a lot of smoke was effort and shelter was a lot less easy to come by than she had always thought it would be. If you _did_ find caves they were usually inhabited or too small to actually do more then huddle in for a night.

There was always merchant's however. Caravans and wagons, small families making trips. Being a young woman seeking a mentor in the healing arts meant she was always welcomed by those groups. She knew how to handle fevers and help set sprains. She'd go to one village and find the nearest doctor, vet, or anyone who knew a bit of heal craft and ask to help out for room, board, and knowledge.

After a while she'd move on. Usually these smaller towns knew of their counterparts in other areas and so they'd give directions, a small letter to help ease her way, and wish her luck.

She spent months this way. She never used the chakra coiled in her gut, sleeping. Rei found a village several weeks from Konoha's borders, towards the land of iron. There she'd been taken in by a handsome older doctor. His hands were steady, his knowledge was spectacular for all he was a doctor to animals and people and would shrug with a sly grin saying flesh was flesh.

Rei wasn't unaware of how he looked over her. Even though she wasn't yet fifteen. But he was handsome and she'd never had that sort of attention before. It was new and enticing and flattering and she for a time forgot even Oni's lessons as she fell in love for the first time, an innocence of blushing fondness.

She'd thought it sweet, a soft fantasy idea that maybe he'd wait until she was older and maybe she'd let the wasp be wrapped up and slumber.

Reality was bitter and instead one night she found herself struggling against a stronger form that pinned her down, not even the scent of alcohol on his breath to convince her he just didn't know. All of a sudden the looks some of the mothers in town had given her, the warnings, the sad expressions made sense. She was likely only the latest young thing to fall into the trap of an older handsome man but out here they wouldn't have risked antagonizing their only doctor.

Considering she had bruises that would be forming she didn't really spare a moment to feel bad for them. Because she was _not_ going to let someone else decide this for her.

The man trying to force his way with her had made a mistake thinking she was just another sweet butterfly. The forms flashed through her mind and she shoved Oni's chakra down further, compressed it into a tight bitter ball of chakra so the emptiness of her coils could stretch as her fingers managed to latch on. She'd fallen limp and then given a pathetic sigh, as if allowing him his way so he didn't pin her so tightly.

His mistake, easing up.

Hands struck heart and head and wrenched his chakra from him. He was just a civilian but she stole every drop of it and he pinned her down as a corpse this time, not breathing. Rapidly cooling. This time the burning wasn't so bad, she bit the inside of her cheek so hard she bled and sobbed and burned but she didn't convulse or scream.

It'd be better every time. It was the sinister part of the kinjutsu, it eventually would likely be addicting but this had fallen into her self imposed rules and she wriggled free of the man's body. She'd bruise in the morning.

Anger burned off any chance of shame that may have been there otherwise. How dare he? The loss of hope, the shattering of those half formed dreams broke what remained of the girl she could have been.

This was the first kill that was really hers, not one set up for her.

She went to the washroom to be sick.

In the dark of night she once again took everything and fled. The advantage was she now had plenty of coin and a story to tell. It didn't take much to bring up tears when she was talking to an innkeeper's wife the next morning, her feet bare and muddy, her attire askew.

"That man..he..he tried..I ran.." The fear, the trembling was real. The woman's hands calloused as she drew her a bath and helped wash her back and brought her tea. She stayed there a few weeks before moving on. She left a large tip when she did because of all the women she could have found, this one was proud of her for refusing to be a victim. If they had been further from where the dead doctor's town had been, she may have been tempted to stay.

She went in a different direction this time. Apparently the land of Tea was welcoming.

()()()()()()()

At some point, working carefully to patch up a geisha's hands in the land of tea -broken shamesian string had left a nasty welt- she had gained a reputation for being good at helping to preserve beauty. Really it was just that many salves and remedies were meant to heal and help with scarring and she'd experimented with a few. Gently she was working in the rose scented balm she'd made, the geisha at the tea house she was staying at were wonderful brilliant women. All were educated and cultured and in exchange for helping to make their cosmetics -she'd gotten practice on the maiko- she had room and board and they were even teaching her to feel more like a woman.

Her near disaster too was met here with sympathy and no few girls would invite her to share their bed, just for warmth and comfort like sisters. It was like sleeping with Rin again and she reveled in it. They were living works of art, sculpting their minds and voices, their actions to heights of beauty. When eventually they were old, still would men come and beg to see them. To hear their words and rest their heads in the laps of even the house matron while she slipped colored nails through their hair and fussed over them.

A geisha was no whore, she was an artisan. She was a poet, a songstress, an actress and a dancer. She could play music and twirl fans and give wisdom that had some of the most stunning of women with their blackened teeth and white faces going to the various Daimiyou's palace's just to have the nobles claim they had heard poems fall from those painted lips.

It was amongst the Geisha that Rei learned elegance. She still practiced her fighting forms but they taught her to hold fans, and many of her motions could be shifted so that ribbons and fans were now her 'weapons' to entertain the entertainer's themselves. They fashioned exotic garments for her that instead drew thoughts to a foreign land, sleek chenogasm's that clung to her and leggings but floated where they parted in her movements of softest cotton. Not silk, though she'd wear silken accessories. Dark navy and violet were her colors with accents of deep gray. Among the vibrant red and pink and emeralds with hues of brilliant cerulean and golds, she was the shade. Beautiful dragonflies and delicate song birds of Maiko and elegant cranes and phoenix forms of the Geisha. To them she was the dark little starling, the sparrow. The black bird.

The little wasp.

She confessed her moniker once when they were teaching her to drink sake, sip by dainty sip. For all that they were clad in naught but their undergarments in the heat of the bathhouse enjoying the benefits of the steam for their skin.

The girls had tittered and trilled their delight, her garments suddenly festooned with the tiny symbol of a dainty looking wasp with an exaggerated stinger that made them giggle about her.

She became _theirs._

When bandits came, or others took too harsh a hand it was Rei who chased them away. They took to painting her face in violet, it hid her markings in the sweeping forms they curled up over her cheeks and brow and the almost spider like mask they would paint upon her with the 'fangs' coming from her natural markings with a curved enhancement. Her chin and mouth were left bare, but they lined her eyes and up to her brows darker still.

She became a dark thing, a warning. A wasp indeed, one defending the nest of jeweled butterflies. If her petite form laying low men thrice her size and girth was anything more than seeming artistry well, it was certainly the place for such theatrics.

Konoha and Oni loomed far in her memories, for she was the wasp of the Ho'oh Tea House now. No wonder all the girls had bird names there, for it was named after the phoenix itself. The Maiko were just little butterflies, fireflies.

And one tiny little wasp. The only splash of darkness and poison in the jeweled nest.

For them she killed. She learned of plots to loot and ones to enslave the beautiful girls with their open hearts and pleading playful faces and she slunk low and after groups. She left them with slit throats at their campsites and strung wire traps they'd walk into. But these were proactive deaths, so she did not steal their chakra.

She did not _use_ it either.

Save for the tiniest of instances when she had learned to use it to walk on trees and walls, on water was still beyond her. Careful. Practiced.

The same feet that had been taught to walk on wires by Oni already knew how to balance and so adding chakra to the mix was surprisingly easy. No wonder the clan children had excelled in the academy if such basic training made the eventual shaping of chakra so much more complacent to ones will.

From the doctor and Oni she had as much chakra as would have filled a bathtub. Drawing it out to walk on trees and walls and do what she felt needed doing, had filled maybe a tea cup over time. Precision, choosing when and how to use it. Making every last drop of it count so that she did not need to refill her reserves was what she did.

Perhaps Oni had made her his creature, but the ladies of the silk and painted faces here had reforged her into something that she was proud of. Her shackles of kinjutsu were no longer heavy rusted and leaden, with pitted markings all over showing the ugliness. They were spider silk cords filled with glass beads of a thousand colors, each one a time she'd aided her girls or been shown affection from the geisha and maiko.

Spider silk was supposedly stronger than steel.

She was happily wrapped in the web even as she flew and stung. And there were _many_ who died. For there were always bandits, there was always someone who wanted to take over something so lucrative as a tea house run by geisha. Always those who wanted to force their way into control.

It was saying something that Rei had gotten very good at digging holes for those who needed to 'vanish' who weren't bandits. But she hadn't taken at all lightly the threat a merchant's son had made to her littlest song bird when she didn't wish to go back to his home and entertain him. The fact he'd then threatened to spread nasty rumors about the tea house? Ones that would have come right before the busy season and perhaps caused the girls within hardship?

Well, he was free to tell the demons in the afterlife.

The girls knew, their dark eyes were much wiser than most would think after all but it was a cruel and vicious world and all that had happened for it was her littlest songbird had asked if Rei wanted to learn how to put her hair up, and slid her own favorite hair comb in Rei's tresses afterwards and kissed her cheek like an indulgent older sister.

The wasp would guard her nest while she could.


	9. Chapter 9

Rei's life had settled into the closest to bliss she could remember since her earliest days. When she and Rin were still hopeful that not only would they become kunoichi of note to inspire other girls but perhaps even on the same team. When she still thought Obito would notice her and not her twin as the friend he wanted to play with when the world seemed bright and new. When the idea of someday was lazy afternoons with their family about and laughter, and always draped in sunlight. Warm gold that seeped even through closed eyelids as Rin's hand would slip into her own and their hair would mingle. Two heads resting together, twins, like and unlike each other but meant for peace and happiness though born to world filled with violence and chaos that would rip them away. At times though, in those noon hours, there was nothing but warmth, and as always, the sunlight.

The light was candle flames in a tea house compared to the noon of her younger days, silk and painted faces to similar markings under innocent eyes that put hers to shame. Yet here, in the Tea house, amongst her 'sisters' Rin had found peace and happiness. For a few years she had even been venturing to the outskirts of the humble little village that had most related by name where a Master Wu had taken up his post and begun teaching various forms of Taijutsu. His students ranged from arrogant merchant sons who thought highly of themselves to curious youths looking to see if there was something for them, something without the pledge of loyalty to a proper ninja village.

She had ventured in once, as any in the village were welcome to study and encouraged to do so in a land so far from ninja, yet so near to roving bandits. If one could not pay or provide materials needed they were welcome to help out at the grounds in exchange. Honestly, Rei had just wanted to make certain her techniques were keeping her properly limber. Those she dealt with and the tricks and stretches she kept up with from Oni and those silent boys of Danzo's were not increasing her abilities at a rate above a slow trickle. It would have been remiss of her not to at least attempt to keep up her skills and advance them, especially as she did not wish to use the hoard of chakra within her. After a time she was invited to spend the days she had free there at his home learning with the others. All she needed to do in exchange was her share of keeping up the estate. Simple tasks, and she had shamelessly claimed the gardens as her work. There were quite a few 'weeds' that could be used in other ways after all, and no one would notice if she took them in her pouch instead of to the compost pit.

All unexpectedly, Rei had become one of the Master's prized pupils even if she was not formally one of his, and she still called him Master Wu or The Master Wu, never her master. That had been Oni and she swore never again would she kneel and let someone chain her. She did not complain when his teachings were harsh when his lessons left her with bruises. After all, Oni had granted her far worse. What was over stressing the body compared to the brutal obliteration of one's morals and thoughts? As her painted maiko and geisha still welcomed her and flitted about with giggles and gentle teasing, even as they'd help rub out the sore muscles she just couldn't seem to get to right, Rei never lost herself even if the Master pushed her to her limits. These were the limits of body, spirit, and mind that any could reach, however. Not involving chakra.

She kept her arsenal of _that_ a secret.

Oh, she had her rivals as often happened, but that was expected when there was a tolerable if not spectacular teacher. A man who could teach the arts that could nearly rival chakra, and no few times Rei began to wonder if he had not the same sort of Training as Oni had, for he seemed to move just ever so fast, ever so slightly too graceful to be without the aid of such, but said nothing to Master Wu.

Not even when her rivals self-proclaimed as they all were would challenge her to a fight. To Rei's surprise, her curt dismissal that they and their egos were not worth her time had actually been met with approval from Master Wu, though it made her a trifle wary. Why after all, would a master of the martial arts set up in the Land of Tea? Especially one who had apparently no chakra nor experience with it? Oh, she'd learn from him, as she learned from Oni. Watchful. Careful. So as always, she held back. Let them think she was far more boast than action and at times let them best her, she would never give even a third of her capabilities because she did not trust this elder. Oni had taught her though, you could work beyond that if you kept your secrets close.

Inside the den of silk and perfumes with her precious ones, Rei was quiet but had learned the art of conversation and flattery as patient Maiko's taught her, proving their own skill in being able to teach another. Sometimes a silvered tongue could disarm a man with iron or steel in their hands, and a skilled geisha? She did not even need to do more then speak. The mistress of the house could even disarm with a stern look or a placid-seeming folding of her hands. It was those lessons that Rei adored, the silent implications. So she continuously submitted to idle suggestions of the painted beauties as they suggested she learn to walk different, observed her gait and told her if she started to favor one leg too much, get more of a sway than a prowl. Trained her voice not to sing, but hum and know how to adjust her speaking pitch to sound either biting and cold or soft and suggestive.

Outside of the Ho'oh Teahouse and her painted hummingbirds the little wasp was curt and almost cruel even though it was more in her sharp refusal to pander to the pleasantries so many would twist about in and turn into barbed compliments. Often in both places, she was blunt and saw no reason to temper that. Rei was not fooled, Master Wu was not so different than Oni had been, though he hid it far better under the veneer of a kind elder with much wisdom as though he was a new sage for the era. So when his students, came and spoke to her, stumbling over their words she was not for a moment convinced that the honey they let out was anything other than pandering words memorized to catch a fly, even if they themselves did not know better.

Rei, however, had grown into her moniker. She was a wasp. The little in her title name gifted by Oni did not mean her youth but alluded to the fact she was unseen, selective. Never again would she trust an elder with agenda's of their own that were not laid out clear and openly. At least the head geisha who owned the Teahouse was honest in that she was making money to live on and paid the girls -and Rei- a very fine wage to live there. The better that they all did the better their clientele and the woman was no fool. She would not let this somewhat courtship of a Master to a Student entice her away from her nest

However, Rei could not shake that sensation of mud along her ankles, slime against the back of her neck dripping down her spine.

There was something wrong with Master Wu. She would not let her guard down.

()()()()()()()

Her clue came a year later when a man visited the geisha house. Beautiful of face, humble in his attire he sat and paid for the meal and music performance, lingering but never enticing any of the beautiful girls to join him. Nor did he invite any of the locals for company. Quietly observing from his corner. Rei thought nothing of it as she slipped about the unique tea house in her dark attire, face fully made up in her wasp pattern. He was just another pretty face. At this point, she really was quite immune to them.

Hair hidden under his hood, every movement graceful enough to challenge even their most accomplished of the geisha as he poured his own tea after insisting they let him be, _that_ drew her attention. There was something of perfection to the turn of his wrist.

"May I help you?" The man asked, returning the tea pot to his table. Not making a move towards the steaming cup.

"You are graceful, I was just admiring your skill," Rei responded without artifice. It caught the man off guard and he laughed, softly.

"Blunt."

"Shouldn't I be?" Rei asked before smiling and turning away, except for the hand that latched onto her own wrist before she could hear or sense the movement. The grip was firm, yet loose enough to not hurt her. Treating her as though she was one of the silk garbed daintily fluttering maidens.

"Sit down and join me." He cajoled, there was danger in his voice. Though Rei had not looked back she could hear it, the lethal tones of one who was so comfortable in their power, in death, they could afford to forget their own poison. Yet, he stayed polite.

"I am not one of the ladies whose time is for sale." She responded calmly. Ever so slightly his fingers loosened, a slow draw down her wrist to her fingers before they parted skin from skin. The movement seemed so accidental that if not for the way he was clearly seeing if her pulse raced-it did not- she would have thought nothing of the slightly hooded gaze. Except she was a wasp, she noticed, she watched, her pulse stayed lazily content and she was not affected. He had done nothing to earn a response, positive or negative, though indeed Rei knew it was far easier to get the later from her unless you were one of her bejeweled girls there. Family she had chosen, that had chosen her.

"I would still appreciate the company of one who has an eye for..subdued, beauty." He remarked and Rei turned to lock eyes with him. His gaze from under his attire shaded as it was, was cold, predatory. A side effect no doubt, for it was not a dangerous smile he gave but a small genuine one. He was used to getting his way. Indeed all of his tone and body language proclaimed he was being truthful. He wanted to talk, eager indeed, about perceptions in a place meant to tease and entice various senses. Peculiar.

"Another time perhaps, I am working." And she found her lips curving in that smile her ladies had told her curved the fangs of her painted mask and made her look dangerously exotic. She knew they were flattering her, but she was fine with that. Compliments were a form of affection here when the makeup was off and the fine kimono's put aside. A deflected affection that betrayed tiny smiles and adoration as they did not use words of love and family, did not call each other sister. To each other they'd use terms to complement each girl's best feature be it hair, voice, skill with the dance..and for Rei they complimented her danger. Helped her hone it into a weapon every way she could. She loved them _fiercely_ for it. For teaching her that she could be soft and yielding while being far more lethal than even Oni could have imagined. For being her tiny flickering lights that warmed her soul. Something of that mystery the girls had she knew had passed into her, but she did not know the stranger caught it in the momentary lowering of her voice, her eyes faintly closing.

Rei had no idea how striking she was in comparison to the stranger, set as she was at odds. "And what is it you do here, such a dark hue amongst the bright jewels of this tea house?" His voice was softly pitched and it made her smile curve a bit more, amused.

"Why, oh graceful one, I handle those who try to push things too far," Rei answered, ever so subtly turning her body so it was a little more towards him. She would not mind, truly, speaking with him. He was entertaining but the muscles of her form under the silk-like garb betrayed that she truly did feel a need to move.

Their eyes locked together for a moment before he hummed, amused, and dipped his head though those eyes never left her own. Two predators in entirely different ways but with no intention of clashing, not even a wary sensation around the other so secure did each feel.

The calm shattered as Rei's eyes tore away as if the wind had been alerting her there was a sound from across the building and Rei thought nothing of darting over, using a few beams and tables to hurriedly launch and pull herself to the upper floor still with only the strength of her muscles and limberness of form as she flipped up on the railing with her back to the room below, before she sneered at the sight. It was a common troublemaker harassing one of her hummingbirds.

"I do believe you must enjoy getting punished, Daisuke-san. This is the fourth time this month.." Rei stated as she shifted her body weight. "Now, do let go of Minako-chan gently." It was his warning and Daisuke knew it. He only ever got warnings since he'd never bruised a girl or argued when she interfered. Paling he let go and held up his hands.

"I'll walk out..."

"And?" Rei shifted her voice, eager, she liked the rush of power that came from protecting her hummingbirds, putting such men in their place. She liked the feel of being better, stronger. It was as addicting as chakra. She knew herself well enough to know it wasn't just taking care of those who couldn't do so either, no, Rei was fully aware she enjoyed the taste of power that rattled and called to the chakra stolen in her veins, locked up tight as it was. Chakra wanted to be used, after all, it was meant to be replenished, emptied, like eating. Not sitting cold and dead in her system, ripped from another and waiting to be purged and then filling the void again. It was a siren's call that Rei had worked hard on ignoring all these years and sought the adrenaline and killing rush under the banner of keeping her girls safe to handle the itch instead.

"I'll pay my bill, of course, Wasp-san." He sighed and the flush to him showed he was intoxicated. Really the girls didn't mind that much as there were fees for laying unwanted hands upon the geisha (they still minded, they were girls and would always mind and old memories of being pinned down by a doctor when she was too young meant that Rei had almost no tolerance at all for such behavior and it was only because the girl Daisuke was harassing was his girlfriend that he was allowed to just leave with a warning during these hours but that did not mean he could grab her like that. Ever. Minako knew if she just said the word he'd never touch anyone again but until she did, it was her choice and Rei would respect that even if she hated it.) but it was still irritating. Even if they enjoyed watching their petite Rei handle men many times her size.

"Move." Rei hissed but then only shifted as she watched him move down the stairs. She adjusted her form to perch on the railing, waiting..sure enough Daisuke stopped at one point to talk to another of the men he so often came with as if hoping she'd forgotten. Lightly, she landed on the table in front of them all, staying crouched. The group jumped but then snorted, shoving Daisuke away. They all knew he'd been caught. That she was letting him pay and walk out showed she wasn't mad, but it also made a few more of them rethink behaviors they may have caused otherwise. Broken fingers happened when the Wasp caught you trying to harass the girls. Or as they had all been warned 'They are performers, artists, women. Not _things._ Anything you touch them with that they do not invite you to do so will be broken or removed.'

She hadn't even needed to tell anyone in a good six months, the gossip took care of that for her.

()()()()()

Rei was unaware that the hooded figure watched her the entire time, taking note of her utter lack of wasted energy. Sheer grace and obviously experience if not power to back it up if the ease she had in controlling a situation before it began was any sign. The respect and no small trace of fear these men had for such a tiny figure, or the adoring gazes of the girls about them. How..interesting.

He continued to watch, the dark violet and navy blue, the black touches on the slight form with the frightening face paint as she flowed around the various tables and performances. Truly, he had not thought much of a tea house out here in a land known for tea, but soon enough rumors had explained it was as much a theater, a place of music and poetry and if anything a more respectable inn than anything. That a good third of the patrons were themselves women, and indeed there were even a few young women on a far side of the establishment he could see being taught caligraphy by an aged geisha boded very well of the place.

Through all the music and bright colors, part and yet entirely separate, the young woman who had neither given nor taken a name, moved as the stranger sat in silence. Watching, his tea all but forgotten.

()()()()()()()()

"You honor our master, Rei-san." One of the girls she had been helping to stretch earlier remarked after Rei finished her mandatory bi-weekly afternoon spar with one of the other lead students. It did help keep her in shape for staying unpredictable, and she had to admit fighting with weapons was something she didn't keep up enough on. The claw-like forms she had used earlier were trickier than the staff and sword she was more familiar with. The truly traditional weapons she knew, the ninja ones, never showed up. Only a few of the others working under Master Wu also used the claws, so Rei took the chance to fight with them whenever they were willing. It wasn't often, and the itch, the burn to enhance her speed or strength with her stolen chakra in her gut would burn at times but Rei would never let it rule her. Though, she was also not so good a person she couldn't admit there were a few of the blockheads she wouldn't mind coming at her in such a way she had a reason to take their chakra and rid the world of them she also knew somehow- _memories of inflicting poison on herself and Oni laughing, taunting, explaining the horror she was handling and what would be next bled into her for a second of time, her instincts were hard won-_ that she did not want Master Wu to ever know.

"How is that, pigeon?" She grinned at the young girl who puffed up her cheeks but in the end laughed at the name. Rei had dubbed her that because she was always bobbing her head and cooing over moves she liked.

"By coming so often and fighting, even though you aren't a formal student of Master Wu." Ah, and that was the honey barb again.

"I have my duties, pigeon," Rei remarked before dumping the water over her hands to clean off the blood. Padded though the weapons were, they did not protect when you got nicked by the others.

"But, you could stay here! With me!" Pigeon bleated out and honestly if not for the fact that the only one who had puppy eyes that would ever work on her was long dead, at the hand of a teammate she loved, perhaps it would have worked. Rei, however, was unmoved.

"I have a home." Came the response instead and she sighed, noticing that one of the scratches was deep enough on her arms she should stitch it. It could wait if she smeared some of that numbing and coagulating salve she carried on it, and then one of the girls could do so. They had much nicer stitches than she did. "I need to head back," Before Pigeon could break out the tears, honestly the girl cried easily but tears did not melt a heart like Rei's unless you already knew how to bury inside it. "You can expect me in two days."

"Why not sooner?" Someone else called out as Rei started walking, already rubbing the unguent on her arm. She did not reply. She never did when they revealed they'd been eavesdropping. For some reason, it just made Rei all the gladder she never went out without her face painted so they wouldn't likely recognize her without the obscuring of her features. There had been something...off...today.

Pigeon never argued the point so often. She'd almost seemed afraid. Actually, they all had. Wary and watchful as never before. Rei mentally paused even as she ensured that this time she didn't have someone tagging along after her, it wouldn't be the first but as none of them felt like the half hour run back she'd do to the village, they didn't follow long. Her instincts did not say it was anything that was a danger to her, or her home. Rather...

Time with Oni had honed her instincts, time with the boys from Root had done something to her awareness that she knew no civilian should have. She shouldn't have more than a crawling uneasy sensation if anything. But she _had_ been around Root. They'd blatantly proved endlessly, perhaps in the only scrap of emotion they were allowed without even feeling it, showing off how far below in skills she was from them. Showing up, watching her, following her.

So Rei _knew_ when she was being watched.

The thing was she was also not stupid enough to call out to whatever, whomever, had been following her for the day. It wasn't as if there had been anything special revealed. Licking her lips she decided to stay alert but not change her routine and started to run.

()()()()()()()()()


End file.
